


ink blots

by edgeofthewall



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 09:39:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8707321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edgeofthewall/pseuds/edgeofthewall
Summary: The traumas of what happened to Ginny with the diary didn't just go away overnight. Harry sees this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhh hello this idea has been in my head for a million years so here it is!!!!

**THIRD YEAR**

Harry can’t remember the last time he’s seen the library this busy, so many tables covered with books and half written essays, some students slumped over with a look of defeat.

Granted, he can’t remember the last time he was in the library, either.

It seems like he might not find a spot to work on the ridiculous essay assigned by Snape, when he spots a familiar flash of red; Ginny, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she turns the pages of her book.

Harry studies her for a moment before approaching. He wouldn’t say she looks happy, necessarily, but it’s still a world of difference from who she was the previous year. Constantly nervous, exhausted. He thinks about what Tom Riddle did to her, the way he held her captive during what was supposed to be the best year of his life, and his blood boils with anger.

Clearing his throat, Harry approaches, offering Ginny a smile. “’Lo, Ginny.”

Predictably, she startles, face flushing almost immediately, brilliantly contrasting the red of her hair. “H-hey. What...” She trails off, and figuring she’s not actually going to finish the question, he takes over.

“Basically everywhere is taken. Can I...?” He gestures to the empty seat across from her and she nods. He sits, spreading out his things as she works hard not to make eye contact with him. He’s not completely oblivious, he knows she’s always harbored a bit of a crush on him, and the ordeal the two went through just last year can’t have helped things. She’s working hard not to make eye contact, instead taking out parchment, a quill, and some ink.

Harry can’t help but watch her a little as he gets out his own things. She dips her quill into the ink, putting way more on it than necessary, before holding it over a corner of her parchment and letting the excess ink drop onto the parchment. She pauses for a moment, seemingly satisfied, before finally starting to write.

He doesn’t ask, but Harry wonders about it for the rest of the day.

**FIFTH YEAR**

It’s easy now to call Ginny a friend. She’s funny, she’s clever, she’s strong-willed, and oddly enough, he appreciates the moment when she calls him out on forgetting the tragedies of her past, momentarily wrapped up in his own.

He’s traumatized, yes. But so is she. And he feels bad for forgetting.

They spend more time together than they ever have, meeting up to study or write, bonding as they go against Umbridge.

Sometimes he sees something in her eyes when he speaks of Cho, or when Cho walks by, but she never vocalizes anything, and he never asks.

She’s still dropping bits of ink onto her parchment.

It’s been two years since that day in the library, but he still sees her do it. Every piece of parchment she writes on, she drops some ink onto the corner first, before she starts to write. Harry is starting to think she doesn’t even realize she does it.

They’re in the library again, both working on some sort of assignment for Umbridge, both annoyed, with Harry’s attention mainly being taken by a lesson plan he’s formulating for the next DA meeting. Predictably, Ginny finishes her essay before him.

“Harry, you know you’ve only written maybe ten words since we got here, right?”

Harry glances down at his own roll of parchment, smiling sheepishly, which Ginny returns as she fetches a fresh roll of parchment to start an assignment for another class.

“There’s no need to rub your superior intellect in my face, you know.”

Ginny grins at that, absentmindedly following her routine of dropping some ink into the corner of her parchment. “I wouldn’t say it’s superior intellect so much as it’s a greater ability to focus for longer than five seconds.”

“Fair enough,” Harry says, her point proven by the fact that he’s now staring at the dot on her parchment. “Hey, Ginny?”

She’s started writing by now, but she looks up, eyebrows raised. “Hmm?”

Harry wants to ask so badly, wants to know why she dots her parchment, what it means, but he can’t. She doesn’t owe him any information, and really, just because he considers her a friend after what they’ve been through, that doesn’t mean she feels the same way.

“Nothing, sorry.”

Ginny shrugs, before lowering her head to write again, and Harry does his best not to stare.

**SIXTH YEAR**

Truly, Harry knows he’s an idiot.

It seems like he should have never missed the signs about his feelings for Ginny, but now they’re loud and clear and he can’t do anything but do his best to ignore him.

Until she kisses him, and for the first time since Cedric, since Sirius, he feels like he’s sixteen, just a boy, who’s somehow lucky enough for the greatest girl he’s ever met to feel the same way about him.

As much as he wishes he could spend every moment with her, he can’t, so when he’s with her, he wants nothing more than to be close, to smell the floral notes of her perfume as she nuzzles into his chest, to feel the softness of her hand in his.

Harry doesn’t want to ask about ink blots when his precious moments with her are so rare as it is, but finally, he figures it out on his own.

She’s written him a note and slipped it in his bag. He doesn’t discover it until after lunch, and he reads it with a smile. It’s clever, witty, full of... is it love? He’s not sure. It’s such a foreign concept for him, when it’s so hard to trust others to love him back.

There’s an ink blot in the corner, and the answer hits him suddenly, as if he knew it all along.

Harry doesn’t have the patience to wait for her to come back to the common room, so he goes to find Ginny immediately.

“I’ll catch up with you guys later,” she says to Neville and Luna when she rounds a corner and spots him. She greets him with a kiss, her lips curved into a slight smile, her happiness contagious. He almost hates to shatter it.

“I finally figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“Why you drop some ink into the corner of all your pieces of parchment.”

Ginny goes a little pale, eyes widening a little. “You-”

“You’re testing it. To make sure nothing starts writing back.”

She doesn’t say anything, one of those rare moments where Ginny looks scared, looks sad. She’s never been shy about her emotions, but it’s still hard to see.

“I know we’ve only been together for a few months, Ginny but I-”

She cuts him off with a kiss, not ready to hear it, not ready to acknowledge it.

“I know,” Ginny whispers against his lips.

“Good.”

**SEVENTH YEAR**

The only thing Harry misses more than Hogwarts is Ginny, and when he finally gets to see both again, he’s torn between elation, and absolute fear.

Ginny is everything his childhood wasn’t. Protective, full of love, and worth fighting for. She’s the girl who can knock someone flat on their back with a spell, but who fears that one day her diary might start writing back to her again.

She’s complicated and perfect and his.

He wants to kiss her, but he doesn’t, knowing there are more important matters at hand.

He wants to tell her he loves her, but he won’t let it sound like a goodbye.

So he finds her when it’s all over, when Tom Riddle’s body has cooled and been forgotten among the rest of the dead, and they go for a walk. She takes his hand without a moment’s hesitation, and it feels so good that he almost stops breathing.

“I’m sorry. About Fred.”

Ginny nods, face still red from crying, though her eyes are dry now. “I know.”

“Do you think we’re safe now?” They’re at the edge of the lake, the only thing truly untouched by the battle they just fought. If he stares at the glassy, smooth surface, he can almost pretend nothing happened.

“From war? Yes. For awhile. From the memories?”

He glances down at her, Ginny’s own gaze fixated on the lake. He thinks of ink blots, of diaries, of horcruxes and bodies. She speaks again, shaking her head. 

“I don’t think we’ll ever be safe from those.”

**FIVE YEARS LATER**

Getting married at the Burrow had been an obvious choice. It was a place they both called home, a place with a family Harry had been a part of long before he asked to marry a member of it.

He’s waiting at the altar now, hardly able to stand up, let alone comprehend the fact that soon, Ginny will be his wife, a confirmation that he’s not stealing moments from another man’s life, that this is his now.

She rounds the corner and starts down the aisle, the white of her dress making her hair seem even more beautiful, her smile the only thing more radiant.

She was right, those years ago at the lake. They weren’t safe from the memories, nor did he ever think they would be. They would cling to their hearts, minds, and experiences forever.

They both still had nightmares. The difference now was the fact that when they woke up, they had each other to pull them back into the present.

They’ve written their own vows, and Ginny goes first, taking the parchment with her vows written on it from her maid of honor, Luna.

Harry can’t help but glance down, curious, and what he sees makes his smile, already threatening to burst, grow even wider.

There’s no ink blot in the corner.

“I love you,” Harry says before she can even say anything, and the guests laugh a little at his enthusiasm. But Ginny knows, she knows what he saw, and she just takes his hand with her free hand, nodding.

“I love you, too.”

They’ll never be safe, not from the memories. But together, Harry thinks they just might make it after all.


End file.
